A glimpse at the future of the movie business

Okay, so these things start small, and always at the edges, and always in ways that don’t seem very significant or threatening. Fine. Fair enough. That’s good because the Hollywood bozos won’t take much notice. News is this. We’re distributing a new movie by Ed Burns exlcusively on iTunes. See an interview with Ed here. Theaters wouldn’t pick up the film because it’s not big enough or whatever. But it’s a fantstic movie and will definitely find an audience. More stuff like this and we’re going to start driving sales of Apple TV if only so that people who buy stuff to watch on their iPhone or iPod can also zip it over to their TV. Pretty soon you start wondering things like, Why do I have a DVD player? Why do I pay for HBO? Why do I have a cable TV subscription? Why do we need movie theaters? Or, if you’re a filmmaker, Why do I need theaters? And why do I need to go kiss a bunch of asses in Los Angeles in order to get a studio distribution deal? Why not just go kiss a bunch of asses in Cupertino?